Among the other messages that same turn, I get one saying Sumner's gained enough seniority to be promotable... he received congratulations for his command seeing off Polk's in a minor battle the previous turn.

On checking the roster, despite promotion to ** that same turn, Sumner was already the most senior Union ** General, & immediately promotable to ***.

I thought that, on promotion, a general's seniority was penalised (presumably in order to prevent just this kind of premature subsequent promotion). Is this penalty not being applied if the promotion is a scripted one?

2. Why are there two Union General Daniel Butterfield's (first in '61, second in '62, General Pools)?... This was also the case prior to v1.16. I have scanned the forum & know this has been mentioned by others before... but I cannot find confirmation that this is a recognised bug.

I think you must be playing the July '61 with neutral Kentucky scenario. I've looked into that scenario and see that Butterfield starts the game with Patterson's Command. Then he is generated per event with the '62 generals. Good catch

Sumner gets promoted automatically per event between the beginning of February and the end of December '62. If the turn before he got promoted per event he advanced in seniority because of his performance in battle -doesn't necessarily mean he or his side won the battle- the game engine doesn't recognize this and his status as promotable remains.

It's a pretty rare occurrence if that's what happened. Since the game engine is frozen (no further developement), except for possibly some major issue, I don't think that there will be a fix for this, as it is really minor and rare in occurrence.

You might want to look at it this way, a 3-1-1 Sumner is far better than a 2-0-1 Fremont , besides, his 5 political rating is pretty low, so passing him over for promoting, for example Grant to *** will cost you much less than if you had to passover Fremont with a political rating of 17. So it's actually a double blessing-in-disguise. Just don't promote him before you promote Grant.

Just sorry that my first post was to report minor issues in such a great & detailed game. I'm not a complete novice, as I've been playing the game on & off for two years. But I feel like I've barely scratched its surface. My recent return to playing the game was prompted by the release of v1.16.

Agreed that, based on his early '62 Union competition, having Sumner available as a ***general makes him a relative military genius. I felt I couldn't look a gift horse in the mouth at the time, so I promoted him. OK, I was taking only a relatively minor advantage, but it felt unjustified, & therefore 'gamey', to do so. I had not previously saved my game & subsequently abandoned what was looking like a relatively successful campaign, due to feeling guilty.

OK, I know I'm a bit of a stereotypical Brit. It's drilled into us from an early age that winning should be less important than how (i.e. fairly, or in this case realistically) you try to win a game. The trouble is, with that attitude, I've never dared take on a human opponent. After all, there are limits to even a stereotypical Brit's levels of masochism

My sense is that your problem might not be resolved by finding someone with a similar upbringing or equal levels of masochism. What you're probably hankering for might be described as a game between two reenactors -- gamey exploits kept to a minimum or discussed and mutually agreed upon in advance. Where it gets tricky is best summed up by a phrase that was current in the pbem community of Combat Mission a few years ago: "Rommel was a gamey bastich!". The onus of getting the system to work in a reaslistic manner is ultimately on the developer, but there are always a few things the game won't model correctly. But having said that, good generals are often good generals because they push the envelope of what is supposed to be possible.

I may be a fanatical re-enactor when it comes to wargames, but I reserve the right to push the envelope a bit from time to time if it doesn't produce results that are absurdly anachronistic.

Philippe, you are of absolutely right about good generals. I was exaggerating my personification of what, I think, are widely perceived national characteristics of a sense fair play & masochism for comic effect.

The game's developers have done an amazing job, & their AI is still quite challenging for me. This is the real reason that I haven't yet had the need, or confidence, to seek out a human opponent. When I do, I will take your advice, & first check for suggested house rules to agree/apply, from this forum.

he game's developers have done an amazing job, & their AI is still quite challenging for me. This is the real reason that I haven't yet had the need, or confidence, to seek out a human opponent. When I do, I will take your advice, & first check for suggested house rules to agree/apply, from this forum